


Edges

by dirigibleplumbing



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Armor Kink, BDSM, Barebacking, Bleeding Edge Armor (MCU), Blow Jobs, Bondage, Bottom Steve Rogers, But still pretty safe and consensual all considering, Clothes tearing, Creative use of armor nanites, D/s elements, Deepthroating, Face-Fucking, First Time, First Time Blow Jobs, First Time Bottoming, Hand Jobs, Happy Ending, M/M, Manhandling, Multiple Orgasms, No Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, No Spoilers, Object Insertion, Objectification, Objectifying Steve Rogers, Post-Avengers 4 (no movie spoilers), Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie) - Freeform, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Post-Canon, Reconciliation, Smut, Sub Drop, Subspace, Through kinky sex!, Top Tony Stark, Under-negotiated Kink, Virgin Steve Rogers, smut with a lot of feelings, so much armor kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-24
Updated: 2019-04-24
Packaged: 2020-01-25 15:38:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,323
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18577447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dirigibleplumbing/pseuds/dirigibleplumbing
Summary: Steve has some ideas about what Tony’s neurally-controlled nanotech armor could be used for. Ideas involving bondage, Steve losing his virginity, and, hopefully, he and Tony working out some of their issues.





	Edges

**Author's Note:**

> Look, I’m a simple woman of simple tastes. I like armor, I like Tony’s Infinity War armor, I like how Tony can form it into any shapes he likes, and I like bondage. So here’s some kinky armor porn. (There’s an interpretation that Mark L has specific shapes programmed into it, but it’s not made clear in canon, so for the purposes of this story, Tony just needs to mentally design it and send instructions to the nanites and it’ll happen.) 
> 
> For the “anger issues” square of my Stony bingo card. 
> 
> This takes place directly after an imaginary Avengers 4 where, over a short period of time, everyone works together to defeat Thanos and reset the Snap, and everyone lives. It was mostly written when only the first trailer for Endgame had come out and has basically nothing to do with what we’ve seen of the trailers since. Also note it was written and published before the movie came out so it doesn't take anything shown in the actual movie into account.
> 
> For those concerned by the "under-negotiated kink" tag, there are more details about the BDSM in this story in the end notes.

“You’re still angry at me.”

Tony’s head pulls back a fraction of an inch, the way it does when he’s confronted with feelings. “Oh?” he says. “What tipped you off?” He sounds as flip as ever. There's no indication, in his voice, that he was only cleared by Dr. Cho to return home an hour ago. That yesterday they were all fighting a battle for the universe. That not long before that, Tony was in space, starving and alone.

“I want things to be better between us.”

“And here I was, thinking we did great yesterday,” Tony says. And he’s right. In battle, it was like they’d never been apart. Better, maybe. It was like Steve’s sense of his own body extended to where in the sky Tony hovered, where Tony’s repulsors or unibeam would be pointing before Tony had begun to aim, when Tony needed cover, when he’d be reflecting a shot off Steve’s shield, when Tony would swoop in and cover Steve. At one point Steve had tossed his shield into the air, leapt over a blast coming his way, and caught the shield again before he’d realized that Tony had bounced a repulsor blast off of it in midair. It was some hours after the battle before he pieced it together and figured out that he’d been reacting to Tony muttering out loud the vector numbers Friday had been calculating for him.

Fighting side by side like that—it reminded Steve how much he’d missed being aligned with Tony in other areas, too.

So he plows onward. “What about outside of a fight?”

Tony considers him. He’s standing at the entrance to his room, braced between the door frame and door, holding it open but blocking passage with his body. Not that that would stop Steve if he really wanted. But that’s not what Steve wants, not at all. “Look. It’s not that big of a deal. We’re fine.”

“What if we were better than fine?”

Tony doesn’t answer, and Steve wonders if Tony’s going to tell him that he doesn’t care either way and close the door in his face.

“I had an idea about how we might—work through some of—that. The unresolved—things between us.”

“If it’s hugging it out, let me tell ya Cap, that ship—”

“No,” Steve cuts him off. “A bit of the opposite.”

Tony raises a single eyebrow. “The opposite.”

“Mind if we talk about this in private?”

Tony looks at him for a moment, then swings the door open wide. Steve walks inside.

Tony’s bedroom at the compound hasn't changed much since Steve was last invited in, more than two years ago. It’s Tony who looks different. He’s recovered overall, medically speaking, but he's still too thin.

“So?”

“I was thinking,” Steve begins. He doesn’t know whether showing how important this is to him will endear him to Tony or enrage him. “Talking things out hasn’t always worked so well for us.”

Tony scoffs but doesn’t disagree. Just waits.

“If you were wearing the armor you could…” Steve trails off. He runs his hand through his hair and forces himself to meet Tony’s eyes, to keep his voice steady. “In your armor—and if I were unarmed—you could overpower me. You could do whatever you wanted to me.”

Tony cocks his head. “And what,” he says slowly, “is it, exactly, that you think I should want to do to you?”

Steve swallows. This is it, he’s going to have to say it. “I want you to fuck me.”

Tony huffs out a soft noise that could be either surprise or derision or both. “Well,” he says, his eyes searching Steve’s face, “I _am_ a great fuck.”

“Tony,” Steve snaps. He wishes Tony weren’t making it so—so crass. So simple. “If you want to,” he says, more quietly.

Tony’s eyes are still flickering all over, his face unreadable. “ _You_ want to?”

Steve nods.

“You know the light system, right? Red, yellow, green.”

“Yes.” He’s read about it, at least.

Tony cocks his head, then taps the arc reactor.

The suit unravels, glittering tiles of armor forming over him like scales on a butterfly’s wings. A layer of silver, black, and glowing cyan first, followed by a cascade of red and gold. Angular puzzle pieces that sync to form soft curves. Steve’s breath catches to see it encase Tony’s body. It’s so close over his clothes, his skin. Steve wants to be that close, wants to wrap around Tony the same way the metal envelopes him.

“We really doing this?” Tony asks. There’s a nearly inaudible undertone of static to his voice that lets Steve know it’s filtered through the suit. Tony can probably pick and choose which utterances get transmitted. Another layer of control.

Steve nods, speechless.

“You can still back out.”

“I won’t,” Steve promises.

Iron Man stalks toward Steve, the movement impossibly fluid and sleek. “Yeah?” Tony’s voice asks, with a delicious hint of a digital edge to the soundwaves. “You like that?”

Steve doesn’t realize he’s been backing up until his back hits the wall. Tony is drawing still nearer, and Steve struggles to remember how to breathe. “Yeah,” he rasps out.

Tony presses closer, and then the armor is flush against Steve’s body. “Oh,” Tony says, and Steve thinks he can hear a smile in his voice now, “you _do_ like that.” He rolls his hips so the groin plate is pressed right against Steve’s growing erection, making Steve writhe and throw his head back as he tries to rock forward to meet it. He narrowly avoids banging his head against the wall.

Steve has always loved the armor. Always wanted to run his hands over it, feel the joints of Tony’s chrysalis. It reminds him of childhood trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the gold leaf and cloisonné of Byzantine icons, the brilliant red of an emperor’s cloak puzzle-pieced out of stained glass, of garnets embedded in gold.

All that comes out of his mouth now is a broken, “Please.”

The armor is surely as close now to Steve’s body as it is to Tony’s. All that separates them is the gleaming metal. He lifts an arm to run his fingers over the arm plates, but before he can touch, gauntleted hands grab his wrists, pinning them to the wall. “Nuh-uh. I’m in charge here, right Cap?”

Steve can only nod mutely. He relishes the feel of the metal on his bare wrists. He tries to twist out—just to test it, to see if he can, to feel his muscles strain against Tony’s grip. It holds fast. The rigidity of the touch is intoxicating. He’s immobilized entirely, the wall at his back, Tony’s armored body against his front.

With Tony in the armor, they’re practically the same height. All of Tony’s front is flush against Steve’s, with only their faces apart. But that touch, of metal to fabric, isn’t enough. Steve cranes his neck forward as far as he can, until his eyes are level with the glowing white-blue of the eye-slits, until he’s breathing in the crisp alloy of the suit. He’s never been this close to Tony’s face before, but it feels familiar, somehow. He thinks it’s the barrier between them, the metal that keeps him from glimpsing even the edges of Tony’s expression.

Steve does what he’s wanted to do for years, and presses his lips over the the gold of the faceplate. Tony’s head jerks, his grip tightening on Steve’s wrists, but he doesn’t pull away entirely, doesn’t try to stop Steve—and he could stop him if he wanted, that’s the point, isn’t it—so Steve deepens his sloppy kiss, spreading his lips over the metal, licking it and sucking at it. The noises his mouth makes against it grow slicker and more obscene, and he thinks—or maybe imagines—that he can hear, not broadcast by the speakers, Tony’s breathing go ragged.

“That’s it,” Tony says, taking a step back. Steve tries to move with him, but Tony has gathered Steve’s wrists into one hand, the other splayed over his chest, holding him against the wall. “Bed. Now.”

The order sends a shudder through Steve’s body. “Make me,” he growls, so desperate for the contact, the attention, that he can’t stop himself from adding a broken, “please.”

Tony holds Steve’s wrists in one hand, extends them up to one side so Steve’s center of gravity shifts to the left, then throws a knee under his right leg and kicks out, Tony’s legs pushing Steve’s apart, throwing him further off-balance. He isn’t supporting his own weight any more and feels lightheaded with the loss of control. He’s practically falling onto Tony now. Then there’s an iron grip around the back of his neck and Steve is being dragged forward.

The armor is hovering a few inches off the ground as Tony manhandles Steve the few steps to Tony’s bed. It’s a vast minimalist thing, with no headboard or footboard; just a metal platform on four legs. When they’re beside it he pushes Steve face-first into the mattress, one hand gripping his neck, the other still on his wrists. He releases one hand to flip Steve over, they grapple briefly, and Steve loves it, loves the burn in his muscles, the rush of exuberance, the buzz of sensation making him feeling finally, finally alive—and then Iron Man has Steve flat on his back, pinned under him.

The armor ripples, like the surface of a still lake breached by a single drop of water. It expands out of Tony's gauntlets and forms bands around Steve's wrists. He can feel the buzz of the nanites continuing to flow, to form something beyond his skin.

Then the metal stills. Tony's hands aren't on his wrists any more. Steve pulls a little on the manacles the nanites have solidified into. He has only a couple inches of leeway; the armor must have formed some kind of chain or connection to the legs of the bed.

“Color?” Iron Man asks.

“Green, green,” Steve gasps.

Now free from keeping Steve’s body in place, Tony reaches out, holds his gauntleted hands over Steve’s clothed torso. For a moment Steve thinks something is wrong, that Tony’s going to stop, get up, retract the armor, ask Steve to leave, and never look at him again. He takes a breath to say something—he’s not sure what, he’s too desperate and keyed up to think—when Tony lowers his hands and skims metal fingertips down Steve’s abdomen.

It’s amazing, it’s what he wanted, what he needed, and it’s not enough.

Steve gasps and stifles a cry. “Take it off, get it off me,” he breathes.

Tony takes the collar of Steve’s shirt in both hands and tugs at it, just a little, faceplate pointed questioningly toward Steve. Steve nods and barely holds back a moan as Tony pulls, fabric rips, and his shirt is torn open.

He can definitely hear Tony breathing now, through the suit’s speakers. The computerized panting could almost be sounds of exertion Steve has heard countless times over the Avengers comms—but Steve knows better. Tony got that worked up just from seeing Steve like this, he thinks.

“Touch me, god, please,” Steve babbles. “Want to feel you, the armor.”

“Which one?” Tony chuckles.

Steve barely understands the question. “Same thing.”

The breathing stutters for a moment, then catches again, like the needle on a record player finding its groove after sliding over a long scratch—and that’s something, that means something, but Steve can’t think what because red hands are on his skin now, warm and metal and implacable. He arches into the touch, bucking against the restraints, against the weight of Tony’s legs pressing his own open.

“Look at you,” Iron Man’s voice says, the admiration barely tempered by the modulation of the suit. His metal touch explores Steve’s abdomen, his sides, his pecs, rubs and tweaks at his nipples.

Steve can only watch him and gasp for air. The faceplate is still and blank, looming above him, light spilling out of the eye slits.

Tony’s hands wander to Steve’s waistband, slowly, searchingly, giving Steve plenty of time to say something. Finally his pants are being tugged open and shoved down his thighs—he arches his back and lifts his pelvis to help—and then Tony’s dexterous fingers are pulling Steve’s erection free.

“Drastically reduced refractory period, right?” Tony asks.

“What?” Steve’s so lost already, he doesn’t know how Tony can form complex sentences right now. He certainly can’t, not with those metal hands hovering near his groin. But that’s why he trusts Tony to do this, isn’t it, that he can do this, be so sure, be in control, can touch and be touched like this and still have his wits about him.

“The serum. How many times can you come?”

Oh. It figures Tony inferred that from reading Steve’s medical reports. But he thinks Steve knows for sure. “Three,” Steve says at last. “At least.”

Iron Man nods—a large gesture in the armor—and reaches down between Steve’s legs. Steve can’t help but tense in anticipation; with Steve bound like this, trapped under his weight, Tony could do anything to him. He could touch Steve, his erection, his balls, slide a  finger inside of him, he could line himself up and just shove his own cock into him right now. The thought is at once terrifying and thrilling. Steve wouldn’t be able to stop him.

But he doesn’t want to stop him. He trusts Tony. And he wants Tony to overpower him, to play with him, to do just he pleases with Steve’s body. That’s the point, after all. Even if Tony wants to hurt him—well. Steve’s used to pain. And it would be worth it, to get to be with Tony like this, for the hope of a better future between them.

“Shh,” Tony croons, the sibilance made staticky by the suit’s circuits. He places a quelling hand flat on Steve’s hip. It would only take a thought for him to activate the repulsor and shoot Steve point blank. “Do I need to tie down your legs, too? Strap your whole body to the bed?”

Steve shudders at the glorious blossom of want that sentiment stirs in him and sighs into Tony’s touch.

“That’s right,” Tony says softly, stroking along Steve’s pelvis, down the inside of his thigh, and finally up his throbbing erection. Gently, Tony tugs the foreskin down. There’s something hesitant in his touch, a tentativeness that Steve wouldn’t have expected from him. “You want this. Give me your color?”

“Green, Tony, please, please.”

Tony obliges him by wrapping his hand all the way around Steve’s length. It’s a light grip, so faint he probably wouldn’t feel it at all if not for the strength of the armor. Steve’s touched himself, of course—is, in that way, familiar with how a hand feels on his cock. But this feels like nothing else ever has. An exquisite tremor runs down his spine, warmth builds in his groin. His cock twitches, or tries to, in Tony’s fist, the shaft trapped by the curl of metal.

“You make such a pretty picture,” Tony says, like he’s confiding something, like it’s not Steve himself he has spread out before him. “You look good in red.”

Steve bathes himself for a moment in Tony’s praise. Combined with the gentle press of Tony’s hand, it’s heady. He knows what the serum has done for him, of course, but it means something to him, anyway, to hear that Tony likes looking at him. He’d want anyone he took to bed to want to be there, to want _him_. The fact that it comes from someone so gorgeous, so experienced, someone who could have anyone—and someone who knows all of Steve’s mistakes and failures and lies, too, he reminds himself, not knowing whether to feel shame at the memory or to relish the fact that Tony’s here anyway—the fact that it comes from _Tony_ means something to him. It means that Steve can be something other than a series of mistakes. (The first mistake, he thinks, was not stopping that Hydra agent from killing Erskine. If Steve hadn’t failed at that, there would have been an army of super soldiers. There would have been _enough_ of them. Whether that would have worked out in the end or not, it wouldn’t have been all on Steve, so he can’t help but want it. Every other mistake weighing on him stems from that one, from letting Bucky fall to lying to Tony about his parents to his failure to stop Thanos the first time.)

But this isn’t something he can fail at, even if he tried. He can do this, make a pretty picture, lay himself bare for Tony, he thinks. It’s easy. He wonders if what Tony said means he’s as turned on as Steve is. He pictures Tony’s cock, straining against the armor, and bucks into Tony’s hand. He needs friction, touch, _Tony._

Tony pushes Steve’s hips back to the mattress but finally begins pumping him in the circle of his fingers. The surface of the armor is so smooth, it feels more like silk than metal. At first Tony’s grip is almost achingly gentle, but it grows firmer and firmer until all of Steve’s sensation narrows down to _metal_ and _Tony_.

Steve can’t stop mindlessly trying to thrust up to meet Tony’s grip, but the hand still pressed over his hip keeps him in place, so he’s just wriggling under the gauntlet, straining to reach back with his own body. Each aborted roll of his hips reminds Steve how little physical control he has. He’s ceded it all to Tony. He’s not needed to make decisions, to lead anyone into battle, to be a moral example. Nothing is expected of him at all but to lie there and let things be done to him. He’s vulnerable, but there’s no need to defend himself. He’s free to do nothing at all.

With each stroke of Tony’s fist around him, he falls deeper into a haze of arousal and sensation. At the same time, the feel of the gauntlet itself is an inescapable reminder of what he’s doing and who he’s doing it with. The twinning of that awareness and haziness is divine. The metal could be impersonal, a barrier, it could be an empty gauntlet pumping around his length, but at the same time it couldn’t be anyone else but Tony. Steve doesn’t know Tony’s skin, couldn’t pick his handshake out of a lineup, hasn’t ever been able to bask in the sight of Tony’s nudity. But the armor is a part of Tony he already knows intimately; it encompasses everything that Steve anticipates and instinctively understands in battle, from the angle to spin his shield to the position of the enemy to the location of each member of his team. For all that it isn’t a flesh-and-blood hand directly on his cock, this is the first time he’s been touched like this by another human being, and it’s exactly how he’d hoped it would be.

Steve becomes aware of a low groaning sound joining the quiet shifting of the armor plates and bedsprings. Only when he feels his throat grow dry does he realize his mouth has been hanging open and the sound is coming from him, growing louder and more urgent as the smooth metal slides relentlessly up and down his length. Glorious arousal builds in the pit of his stomach. His muscles grow taut and tense, his balls curl and tighten close, and then he’s coming. His head rolls back with a silent exhale and he feels a warm, wet streak on his abdomen and dripping from Tony’s gauntlet.

“Fuck,” Tony whispers.

Steve’s muscles relax in a twitching cascade as he shudders through the aftershocks. Finally he stills. He’s just a dead weight on the bed. His arms fall so the bands around his wrists give a faint tug, a reminder that Tony’s not finished with him yet.

“Brilliant,” Tony says.

“Yeah?” Steve rasps. “You like me this way?”

“You have no idea,” Tony says, dipping a crimson finger into the puddle of come on Steve’s stomach.

Steve had thought his orgasm had wrung the last of his energy out of him, but somehow his muscles find it in them to tremble as Tony draws a damp trail up his torso. Steve’s eyelids feel heavy, and with his head slack against the pillows he doesn’t have the best angle, but through the curtain of his eyelashes he can see the red gleam of metal make its way up his chest. Another hand joins the first, and Steve watches, captivated, as the mirrored pair of cherry-red gauntlets wind their way to his nipples.

“Oh,” Steve gasps, arching his back as one nipple is pinched, then the other. Steve gasps each time, until he’s panting, closing his eyes against the barrage of sensation washing over him.

Tony hums. He sounds pleased. Content. Steve savors that knowledge, that sound, gives himself over to the warmth and pressure of Tony’s teasing, tweaking hands. The caress turns barbed—something is scratching, deliciously sharp, at his skin. It takes him a moment to realize that Tony has extended claws from the tips of the gauntlets. He scratches and marks his way over every inch of Steve’s skin. He pushes Steve’s pectorals like buttons, flicks his nipples like switches, tugs and twists like Steve is a circuit board he’s fiddling with. No, playing with—Steve’s body is Tony’s toy, his instrument. And Tony is—as he is in so many things—an expert at it. He already knows how Steve works, knows how to manipulate each of his constituent parts, how to make them harmonize and sing and cry out for him.

Hands roam up and down Steve’s body. He feels incredible, over-sensitized. Tony strokes the thin tufts of hair that cluster from Steve’s belly-button to his groin, rubs circles over Steve’s biceps, grabs and kneads at his pecs. Heat floods through Steve, rushing up his spine so fast he goes light-headed. He thinks of Tony’s holograms, of touchscreens, of Tony’s hands shaping light and code into some brilliant design. The trails of sensation Tony leaves on his body feel bright, lit up. He thinks maybe Tony is making him into something else, and he can’t wait to see what it is.

“Hmm, what’s this?” Tony asks, his hands disappearing from Steve’s skin, and Steve can’t stop himself from bucking up, pulling against the bonds at his wrists and the weight of Tony’s armored body holding down his legs, chasing the touch. Then it’s back, for just a moment, as Tony bats—gently, playfully—at Steve’s erection. “Already hard again, huh?”

Steve tries to nod. He’s not sure he’s successful.

“Well, seems like I have some catching up to do,” Tony says. He shifts his weight and begins to stand.

Steve’s fogged-up brain tries to catch up. Does Tony mean he’s not hard, himself? He’d thought Tony was enjoying it as much—well, maybe not as much as Steve, but almost as much.

He tries to sit up, to see what Tony’s doing, but the manacles hold fast. Straining his neck, through half-lidded eyes, he manages glimpses of Tony at the foot of the bed. The armor retracts and reshapes as Tony moves. He pulls off his shirt in one smooth motion, the nanites climbing up over his bare skin to cover it just as it’s exposed, so Steve sees only flashes of Tony’s body. Gold, silver, and red—like rubies, Steve thinks—swirl, expand, finally recede in a swarm to expose the entire bottom half of Tony’s body. He undoes his pants and shucks them, underwear and all, the nanites swarming back over him at the same speed he sheds the last of his clothing. Steve catches glimpses of silver lines etched into Tony’s skin, of the dark hair of Tony’s calves, of the blushing, dusky pink of his half-hard cock.

Steve lets his head fall back onto the pillow and then Tony is there, _right_ there, crouching on the bed so his legs are straddling Steve’s chest. His groin hovers right in front of Steve’s face. Steve’s mouth waters contemplating it. “Please,” he says. It comes out raw, more of a croak than a word, but the armor shimmers and ebbs, freeing Tony’s cock.

“Color,” Tony says, voice impossibly steady.

“Green, Tony, please.” Steve lifts his head, tries to reach Tony with his mouth, but can’t quite make it. He can smell him, though, a heady, musky scent. He licks his lips. “Please.”

Tony makes a sound Steve can’t quite identify and finally jerks his hips forward, pushing his half-hard length against Steve’s parted lips. It isn’t a smooth motion, and his cock ends up just smushed to one side over Steve’s face, but Steve’s mouth finds it anyway. He turns his head and wraps his lips around the head. “Fuck,” Tony says in response, the word tapering into a moan.

Steve runs his tongue over the tip, tasting the salty tang, even while his heart races. He wants Tony in his mouth, has dreamed of him there, but he doesn’t know what to do, not really. He doesn’t even have experience from the receiving end to draw from. He’s seen pictures, sure, and in recent years, videos—he may have even read some articles about it. (Some of it he had felt sure he could ignore, like the “tip” about chewing on a piece of fruit and keeping it in your mouth while sucking someone off.) But most of his reading had been focused on—he’s just thinking to himself, he can use the words, he tells himself—on the anal penetration aspect. That part had seemed the most compelling and, in some ways, mysterious. Fellatio, Steve had been sure, he could figure out.

Now he’s less confident. He tries to remember how Tony touched his cock. It was just moments ago, but it feels distant, a tangle of sensation. He thinks of the handful of times—inspired by his research—he’d nudged a single finger a couple of knuckles into his own hole, remembers what he’d liked about it, tries to turn that feeling inside-out and imagine how to replicate it with his mouth.

He doesn’t know how long he wastes worrying about what to do. Deciding he has to do _something_ , he wraps his mouth tight around the circumference of Tony’s cock, slides his tongue around the head to reach his own lips, until everything is dripping with his spit and he can slide back and forth with the small amount of range the angle of his neck allows him.

“Wow,” Tony breathes. His head falls back, exposing the metal around his neck, bright and shiny like the shell of a hard candy. Steve sees movement out of the corner of his eye, a flash of red, and then cold fingers, charged with static, are carding through his hair. “Can I—”

 _Yes,_ Steve tries to say, forgetting himself.

Tony chuckles. “Don’t talk with your mouth full,” he chastises. He sounds so—so open, so playful. Steve swells with pride and tries again to swallow Tony further down. Tony groans and inches forward, sliding deeper in, his shaft smooth and velvety across Steve’s tongue. “Just nod or shake your head, okay?” Steve nods. “Do you want—can I pull on your hair?” Nod. “Can I fuck your face?” Nod, nod, nod.

Instead of diving in as soon as permission is granted, though, Tony just rocks back and forth, his cock gently easing in and out of Steve’s mouth. At one point he falls all the way out, so he has to take himself in hand and guide himself back in, and Steve whines at the loss, moans around Tony’s length as soon as it’s back on his tongue. It’s fully hard now, straight and smooth, with none of the give it had when Steve first tasted it. He tries to close his throat around it, make his mouth as tight and inviting as possible, convey his enthusiasm, his need. Tony tugs at his hair, combs through it, touches dexterous metal to Steve’s scalp. Each little jolt of pain that spike into his skull pulls a surprised gasp from his lungs.

Finally, finally, Tony pushes all the way in. He slides down Steve’s throat slowly, smoothly, then stills. It’s hard to breathe, but everything still feels delicious and amazing, and Steve wants _more_. He inhales through his nose, tries again to suck and swallow even as Tony’s length crams up against the muscles at the back of his throat. He can feel the skin of Tony’s balls resting gently against his chin.

“Wishing you’d kept that beard,” Tony says, offhand, and Steve finds himself trying to smile around Tony’s cock. He knew this would feel good, knew Tony would know just how to fill him with pleasure, but he hadn’t quite imagined it would be _fun_. That here, in this physical intimacy, he’d get a glimpse of a Tony at ease with him, filling the air with his stray thoughts. It makes his heart ache to think he may have to give it up again, that as soon as the sex part is tucked away it could go back to battle plans and heavy silences. He lifts his head, tries to shove Tony further down his throat, to choke himself on Tony’s cock, to feel some sort of physical pain to match the internal. He has Tony as deep as he’ll go, though, and only barely succeeds in pulling his head far enough from Tony’s hand that he gets a quick bolt of discomfort at the roots of his hair.

Still, Tony seems to take the hint and snaps his hips, moving at last. The shift in angle pushes at something in Steve’s airway that cuts off his breathing for the seconds Tony remains there. He sees stars behind his eyelids and tears prick at the corners of his eyes before Tony pulls back, letting him catch his breath, before he rocks forward again, starting a steady tempo.

Steve tries to move his tongue, his lips, to do anything to _participate,_ but even trying to lift his head is impossible with Tony trapping his head between his cock and the hand gripping his scalp. He gives up and focuses on breathing, on covering his teeth with his lips, on the slide of Tony’s length. Saliva floods his mouth, but there’s no way to swallow, not with the pace Tony’s setting, so it just drips out of his slack mouth, down his hollowed cheeks, the line of his tensed jaw. Droplets wind down the surface of Tony’s balls, too, cold and rough on Steve’s skin.

It might have been uncomfortable, at first—not in a bad way, exactly, but—strange. New. But now he’s adjusted. He welcomes each pulse, the newly familiar press of Tony’s length against the muscles of his throat. He finds himself mimicking the rhythm of Tony’s hips with his own, bucking up into the empty air. He revels in the taste of Tony, the warm, briny trickle of pre-come at the tip of his cock, in the wet sounds of lips and spit and skin and the soft, building gasps escaping the speakers of the armor.

Bliss flows over his skin the same way Tony’s armor spreads to cover him. He feels it build inside, a cascade of tremors welling up his spine. The next thing he knows, his hips jerk and he’s coming for a second time.

Tony’s thrusts slow. “Did you just—jesus.” He stills, relaxes his grip on Steve’s hair. “That is—wow. You keep this up and I’ll be making a pre-emptive strike in your mouth, and then you won’t get my cock in your ass. Fuck. You’re ruining me for anyone else.”

Steve wishes that were true. His lips follow Tony’s cock as it retreats. “My plan all along,” he slurs.

The bed dips as Tony shifts position. His hands are on Steve’s wrists again. The manacles slither as the metal retreats back into the main armor. Tony pins his wrists together above his head—Steve’s arms are slack and move easily—and locks them together with a surge of nanites.

He knows that he’d planned to keep grappling with Tony, try to struggle against him, bring some fight into the proceedings. Make it feel like Tony has won a victory over him each time he and his armor overpower Steve’s physical strength. But now, as Tony rolls him onto his stomach, prods and arranges his limbs, he can’t bring himself to resist. He feels cumbersome and sluggish. It’s easy to let Tony position him so he’s on his elbows and knees. He hopes that Tony knows that bringing Steve to a place in his head where he doesn’t want to fight is its own kind of victory, too.

Apparently satisfied with Steve’s pose, Tony kneels behind him so their thighs are flush, front to back. The groin plate of the armor nestles against the cleft of Steve’s ass. Tony grasps Steve’s hips with bruising force—Steve hopes the marks will last long enough for him to see them—and rearranges the armor further. Nanites march down Steve’s thighs in a crisp line, pool on the surface of the bed, and build themselves into an arch supporting his body. He lets himself rest on it the moment the structure is complete. A muscle twitches in one thigh. He hadn’t realized how tense he’d been, holding himself up and keeping still, until he’d let himself become dead weight.

Tony’s grip softens into a tug. His hands roam over all of the skin in their reach, kneading and squeezing as they go. “Gorgeous.” He gives one of Steve’s ass cheeks a soft slap. “Love the jiggle.”

Steve presses his face into the mattress to keep himself from speaking. He’s sure the only word he’ll be able to utter is _please_ , and the whole idea is to give Tony whatever it is _he_ wants. Steve had let himself beg, earlier in the proceedings, to spur Tony on to what he’d already set his mind to do. But it’s Steve who’s desperate for Tony to fuck him now. If Tony wants to take his time, ogle him, tweak his thighs, pinch his hips, claw the curve of his ass, then Steve will let him. It feels good, anyway. Better than good. Steve’s never had a massage, and with the serum probably wouldn’t ever really _need_ one, but what Tony’s doing to his backside is more like a massage than anything else.

There’s so much of _touch_ , of metal, of Tony, that Steve barely registers it when Tony switches gears. He’s playing with Steve’s crease, exploring with his fingertips, pressing and prodding between his hole and the base of his cock, taking Steve’s balls in a handful and rolling them between his fingers. Then, in a rush, the contact becomes cold and slick. The gauntlet is slippery on Steve’s skin. He wishes he could see it—the red metal glossy and glistening with lube. He wonders if Tony is piping it through the armor somehow, or if he’d gotten some when Steve wasn’t paying attention.

Tony sweeps wet fingers down the space between Steve’s cheeks, teases at his hole. Steve gasps into the sheets, grown damp from his heavy breath. He feels shivery all over, a cold-hot flush like a fever. Once again he’s astounded by the delicacy of Tony’s touch, armored as it is. He strokes in a slow rhythm, not quite pushing inside, just barely dipping in and then immediately out again. Part of Steve still can’t grasp that he’s being touched there at all, let alone by someone else, by _Tony_.

He’s so wrapped up in what Tony’s doing that he barely spares a thought to his cock, grown achingly hard and bobbing free between the latticework of the nanite wedge holding him ass-up on the bed—until Tony’s there, too, gripping him hard, dirty, and slick. Steve cries out and arches his back on reflex, but Tony won’t let him, pushes him down by the small of his back, trapping him between his hands.

Being pinned like this means that Steve can’t feel Tony except where Tony reaches for him. He wants to reach back, to glide his hands down Tony’s arms, to raise gooseflesh on Tony’s skin. But there’s a freedom in not being able to. It means he can’t push too hard. He can’t accidentally grab with bruising or bone-breaking force. It means he can’t hurt Tony with his inexperienced, clumsy touch.

At last Tony pushes in, barely a knuckle deep, making Steve cry out and clutch at the sheets in his fists. “Shh,” Tony says, placing a quelling hand on the small of his back.

Tony’s palm, flat against his skin, is warmer in the middle, where the repulsor sits. The only warning Steve would have if Tony fired with it is a brief, charging whine, too short to do anything about it even if Steve weren’t lying, lax and vulnerable, under Tony’s care. Steve imagines the crackling blue light, dimmed against his skin.

The armor is a weapon. All of Tony is. Not just the repulsors, the unibeam, the lasers, the micro-guns, the missiles. Not just the enhanced reflexes and strength the armor offers him. His brain is a weapon, too. Every part of him is sharp-edged, like a knife.

The thing about Tony having so many edges is that—like adding sides to a geometric shape until it becomes functionally a circle—he ends up practically edgeless. Which, strategically speaking, is the most powerful shape to be.

Steve has used a variety of different shields—including objects not intended as such. The circle remains his favorite, even compared to more advanced uses of vibranium.

He’d learned in art school how the cross-sections of the human body are all ovals and circles stacked on top of each other: the circumference of a wrist; the border of an upper thigh; the outline of a waist; and—with Tony’s fingers curving around Steve’s, he’s compelled to add it—the girth of a cock.

When he rams someone with the rim of the circular shield, all the force, all the energy behind it converges against the circular planes of a body. The shield is, geometrically speaking, perfect. Anything a circle hits, it hits at a perfect tangent. There’s no need to get a single specific point on the rim pointed the right way, because every point on the rim of the shield will carry the force of the entire thing. When it hits another circle, or an oval, on the human body, they meet _each other_ at perfect tangents. All of the power is concentrated at the point where they meet.

That’s what Tony is like. A weapon and a defense—a shield—at once. A potent, perfect shape, designed to concentrate all of his power on one point.

The point he’s concentrating on now is Steve.

The other advantage of a round shield against the round cross-sections of a human is that they don’t glance off each other, the way a long, piercing object would.

And as if he knows Steve is thinking the word _piercing_ , Tony pushes his finger all the way inside.

Steve’s cock jumps in Tony’s hand. He’s surprised his whole body isn’t following suit. It feels so—good. Amazing. It’s new, it’s strange, and he loves it. The finger is moving inside him now, all wetness and hard, unrelenting metal. He can’t quite figure out how to let it in, even as it already _is_ in. He tests out his control over the muscles it’s touching, clenches something low in his abdomen, bears down even though in this case—bent as he is—he’s aiming up.

Then it’s like he’s rearranged himself inside so that Tony’s armored finger is exactly where it’s meant to be. The bliss he’d been feeling somehow ramps up. He didn’t know he could feel this good.

Most of Steve is exposed to the air. There’s the nanite cuff binding his wrists, the prop keeping him in place, Tony’s thighs grazing against his own, and Tony’s hands—one in front, one in back. Beyond that he’s bare. But somehow what Tony’s doing manages to touch him all over. He feels it in his arms, in each breath that fills his lungs, in the blood pounding in his ears, down to the soles of his feet. Somehow, the sensations Tony is coaxing out of him are all-encompassing.

Steve is slow to realize that something is—happening. “Oh,” he breathes. The finger isn’t just moving inside him. It’s—growing. Shifting. How long has it been doing that? It’s big now, much bigger than just an armored finger. Fuller, longer, rounder. It feels wonderful, pressing places Steve didn’t know he had. God, it’s like the armor is alive, like the gauntlet around Tony’s hand is growing a metal cock that’s the armor’s very own, flushed full with microcircuitry instead of blood.

“Oh,” he calls out again, the word tapering off into a breathless sigh. He’s shaking involuntarily, swallowing gulps of sheet-smothered air. The shape inside him expands further. He thinks, dimly, that it feels like it could keep going forever. It could just—never stop swelling and increasing, and his body would let it in, take it all, maybe even be blotted out entirely.

He wonders how big the thing sliding in and out of him is now. If it’s as big as Tony’s cock. If it’s bigger. How big will Tony let it get? He hadn’t thought about size and shape much, before. He knows it’s supposed to matter. Now he understands why. And Tony’s nanites are learning him, fitting themselves to him, finding the size and shape of Steve himself, the better to pleasure him.

The metal cock recedes and then pushes back in all at once, and maybe it’s bigger than it was before, or it’s found the perfect shape, or Tony has discovered just the right way to angle it, to touch him, because he’s coming again, spilling over Tony’s hand. It pulls a raw moan from deep in his throat. Tony holds him through it, grounds him, rocks along with his aftershocks, touches him while he finds his breath again.

“Feeling good?” Tony asks. He snakes his hands in flowing lines down Steve’s back.

“Good,” Steve manages to slur. His tongue is heavy—all of him is heavy, so relaxed he feels boneless—and it’s hard to concentrate on anything beyond the way his skin sizzles under Tony’s fingertips.

“You good, then?”

It takes Steve a moment to figure out what he means. His brains are as liquified as his muscles. “No,” he says as soon as it clicks in place. Now that he’s reminded of it, now that he’s known a taste of having Tony inside him, he _needs_ Tony’s cock. “Please.”

Tony chuckles and lets his hands fall to Steve’s hips. “Gonna need you to be more specific, big guy.”

“If you want to,” Steve says. “Please, I want you inside me.”

“If I want to,” Tony repeats. He shifts his hips, leans forward so their thighs are pressed together, and—oh—there it is, the hard length of him, skin at last skimming over skin.

“Please,” Steve says, a feeling approaching panic welling in him at the thought he might not get to find out what Tony feels like sliding into him. There’s something behind that panic, too, reminding him this is supposed to be about what Tony wants. Tony does want this, right? He’s just teasing Steve. He knows how desperate Steve is for it. He has to.

Tony hums in assent. But nothing happens.

Steve’s bracing himself for—for something. He expects it to feel like the nanite-dildo Tony formed in him, but different. It can’t be that different, can it?

He's lightheaded and realizes he hasn’t been breathing. He forces himself to inhale, to feel his lungs inflate. Just as he’s wondering how to convey his urgency, his need, with his body—he’s not much for words, right now—he hears a soft wet sound and lets himself relax. Tony’s slicking himself up.

The sounds stop. The mattress shifts slightly near his knees. Steve imagines Tony lining himself up, holding his cock in his shining, crimson hand, and—yes, there it is, blunt and warm. Finally, finally, here it is, and Steve simply—takes it. His body welcomes the intrusion and then, in one smooth stroke, Tony is buried inside him to the hilt.

He’d felt needy before, but now that he knows what this feels like, now that he knows how much Tony belongs here, he’ll only want it more.

“Yeah,” Iron Man’s voice says. It’s at once loud and distant. “Yeah, there you go. Feel good?”

Steve nods into the mattress, belatedly realizes he hasn’t communicated anything, and shoves back against Tony, letting a protracted groan spill from his mouth. It tapers off into a whimper.

Tony’s hands tighten. He stays there, bracing himself on Steve’s hips, the weight and pressure of his cock an ecstatic presence. Tony’s inside him, Steve thinks. Contemplating it is as delicious as living it. Tony is _inside_ him. No armor between them now, just the intimate press of flesh.

Slowly, Tony begins to roll his hips. Steve can feel his cock move inside him—Tony is _inside_ him, he thinks again, someone is fucking him, and it’s _Tony_ , they’re here together, they’re alive, they’ve _won_ —pressing and filling him just right.

Steve had known this would feel good, in concept. He’d known Tony would be good at this. He doesn’t like to think about Tony being with other people. Not out of some misplaced sense of propriety—more misplaced possessiveness, wanting to keep for himself what he doesn’t even truly have. But he knows Tony’s had—plenty of practice. And Tony is good at whatever he sets his mind to. Especially when his success can bring others joy.

Living it is another matter, though. Every time he reaches a new height of pleasure, Tony brings him higher still. That’s Tony, Steve thinks. Flying past the tops of buildings, above the clouds, to the stars.

He’s fucking him in earnest now, deep and long and steady. His cock is hitting Steve in all the wonderful places he’d found with his finger. Steve feels lax, sloppy, like he’d slosh into a melted puddle without Tony to hold him together. The heavenly shove of the cock inside him is all that anchors him.

It shouldn’t feel transcendent, should it, to have a man’s dick sliding in and out of his hole, to hear the wet sounds of armor smacking against flesh, to feel Tony’s balls slap against him with each pulse—but it does. He’ll become nothing but ecstasy, soon, without form or body, just sense and pleasure.

His head spins, he’s in free fall, dizzily falling down and down, like in a dream where every time he sinks into the mattress he just begins falling all over again. Tony hasn’t changed position, but everything is different now, in a way he can’t quite pinpoint, until he’s soaring again, Tony’s cock driving him upward, making him weightless with bliss. At first he thinks it’s all in his mind, a hallucination brought on by the overwhelming, almost feverish barrage of sensation suffusing him. But no, it’s the armor again, the nanites: the prop is reshaping beneath his hips, rising and falling like the crest of a wave, rocking him from one angle to another so that Tony slides over every sensitive part inside him.

It’s easy to find the rhythm of it, only a little harder to coax his sluggish muscles into matching it. He pushes and pulls and tugs with the undulation, exaggerates and draws it out, and soon finds that Tony’s heavy breath has joined his own, rough and hissing from the suit’s speakers. Knowing he’s making Tony feel good too only ramps him up further. He’s doing something right, he thinks, arching his back with the arc of the nanites under him. He’s getting louder and losing himself further to the wonder of it all. Tony is inside him, the armor is propping them up and fucking them together and somehow Steve’s body knows what to do.

“You,” Tony rasps. “I’m.” His rhythm grows sloppy. Steve thinks he recognizes a desperation in his movements that’s a match for Steve’s own.

As if in answer to his words, the nanites transform, slipping and sliding underneath Steve like tiny beads. The shape under him dips, lowering his hips, not all the way down, then extends forward and up to tilt his chest up. Soon, his arms are completely extended, his pinned wrists bound to the metal propping him into the new crouch.

Tony leans forward and tucks up against him, their knees and thighs nestled together, Tony’s arms on either side of Steve’s shoulders, their hands almost touching. The chestplate is cold with the damp of Steve’s sweat as it comes to rest against his back. And—yes, _yes_ Steve thinks—the helmet is there, right there.

Steve turns his head to the side and presses his cheek against the faceplate. Feeling it there, seeing it there— _right_ there—is exquisite. It’s always been easy to imagine being this close to the armor, easier than imagining Tony, and now here it is, the same implacable expression as always bright and glossy in its narrowed, glowing eyes. Maybe it’s seeing the armor’s face, maybe it’s the way Tony’s metal body is wrapped right around him, maybe it’s how the new arrangement makes Tony’s cock fit inside him, but whatever it is it makes Steve moan.

He’s louder than he expects, at first, then finds it’s not just him calling out after all. It’s Tony, too. Tony is mirroring the sound, just as slivers of Steve’s face are mirrored in the gleaming gold of the faceplate.

“There you are,” Tony says.

Steve just nods. His cheek squeaks against the metal of the helmet. He doesn’t know how Tony can speak at all. His own mouth is slack, his eyes glazed. His vision is a haze of crimson, silver, gold, and white-blue light. He’s dimly aware that he’s drooling, that he hasn’t stopped repeating the long, needy moans and groans he’d started when he saw the faceplate. They’re coming in time with Tony’s thrusts.

“You like that,” Tony says, not quite a question. The electronic edge to his voice flattens out his tone just the slightest bit, but Steve thinks there’s admiration in it. Astonishment, maybe.

“Yeah,” Steve tries to say. It comes out long and ragged. “Yeah, yes, yes, yes, yes—” The words, slurred as they are, take the place of his even less articulate exhalations. It’s not so much speech, really, so much as a new syllable for his moans to shape themselves into.

“Can you come again?”

Steve’s not sure. He feels cumbersome and slow. Clumsily, he says, “Think so.”

“Want to feel it.” Tony’s still right there, pushing into him, surrounding him. “Gonna come on my cock?”

“Please,” Steve breathes. His eyes are screwed up. Tony has him pinned, held, enveloped. It doesn’t seem possible for Steve to feel better, or _more_ , there’s so much happening, and all of it is fantastic. At the same time, he feels close to an edge. Everything is building up inside him, and it feels endless, now, but it will have to overflow eventually.

Tony wraps a gauntlet around Steve’s cock, and Steve _yells_. He’d practically forgotten about it, just hanging heavily between his legs and the struts of the nanite support. How had he not realized how much he needed this? But Tony knows, Tony has him, his fingers stroking him in time with his thrusts. The pressure is just right, rigid with metal but tender in its application. There’s metal everywhere, on the sensitive length of his cock, crowding against his thighs and back, on the side of his face, and the feel of Tony’s hand on him is a perfect balance to the slide of Tony’s cock in his ass.

It doesn’t take long before he feels his orgasm coming up on him. “Yes, yes,” he chants. “I’m. _Yes_.”

Tony seems to understand. “Yeah, oh fuck, Steve, there you go—”

It all coalesces in his cock—the armor, Tony’s digitized voice, the delicious strokes of Tony’s cock, Tony’s weight against his legs and back—and comes pulsing out.

“Yeah, yeah—” Tony shudders and throbs inside him, his words stuttering into an exultant cry. It feels _amazing_ , like when the nanite support was rocking and swinging them, but _more_ , and closer, more intimate. Steve’s not sure if he’s coming yet again or if Tony’s orgasm has drawn out his own, he just rides it as Tony gasps and groans and slows, letting more of his weight fall on Steve, his thrusts growing shallower.

“Oh,” Steve says softly as Tony stills. He’s in awe of the contentment that suffuses him. He’s immersed in it, luxuriating in it. His skin feels oversensitized. He can’t hold his eyes open to see, but he’s sure he has goosebumps. He might be trembling a little. Or maybe vibrating is a better word. He’s oscillating, alert, not shaking.

He lilts forward. It’s the nanites, slipping and gliding under him as they retreat back into the arc reactor. The cuff around his wrists is already gone. As the support under him dismantles itself, Tony wraps his arms around Steve’s chest, holding him up and easing him onto the mattress, now bare of nanites.

Tony’s still armored, though. And once he has Steve settled on the covers, mouth gaping open and muscles liquid, Tony says, “I’ll be right back,” and then he’s gone.

Steve breathes. He smells his own sweat and come. The sheets are cold. He misses the feel of metal.

He blinks a few times, clearing his vision. His head is already feeling less fuzzy. He can still feel the blood rushing through him, pounding in his ears, but where before it was a pleasant sizzle, now it has an edge of agitation, of insistence to get to the next thing.

Steve doesn’t want to get to the next thing. He wants to bask in this, the feeling of satiation and calm that’s washed over him. He wants to—

It’s all about what he wants, isn’t it.

It was supposed to have been about Tony, he reminds himself. It had made so much sense. Tony is all about control. He’s also a force of nature, all whirlwind movements and torrents of words, a creature of sensation and touch. He likes pushing people to their limits—himself most of all—and seeing when they tip over. It seemed a sound strategy to give him control of Steve, let him prod and play and make him feel whatever he wanted. He’d told himself they would be more comfortable afterward, having gotten it out of their systems. Instead of punching and blasting or yelling and screaming, they could direct their adrenaline—everything between them—to sex.

But that’s not really what happened, is it? And it’s not what Steve wanted, not if he’s honest with himself.

God, he’s so stupid, so selfish. He’d fooled himself, saying this was for Tony, something Steve was giving him to make things up to him, to try to make things right. But what has Steve given him? A passive vessel. Nothing more. Tony did all the work, Tony did all the _doing_ , all the touching and arranging and coaxing and god, Steve came four times. How could he think this would make things _equal_ between them? How could he let Tony give so much of himself, again, while he just lay there and took it? And nothing will be better between them. Even if Tony forgives Steve for taking advantage of him like this—after he’s forgiven him for so much else—Steve will know he doesn’t deserve it. Tony’s forgiveness, Tony’s tenderness, any of this. He’ll know that he wanted Tony, so he took him, all the while pretending it was the other way around.

He has to leave. Now.

But he’s so heavy, so slow. His body still wants to revel in the vivid, satisfying warmth it’s clinging onto. He starts to push himself to his knees when he hears a door open. Tony’s back already. Steve turns his head away as footsteps approach the bed. Now Tony’s going to see him like this, take on another problem that’s not his to solve.

“Shit, Steve, are you okay?”

Steve swallows and ducks his head. He can’t look at Tony, even as he feels the mattress shift to take Tony’s weight.

“Steve, I—can I touch you?”

Steve nods before he can stop himself. Here he is, letting it happen again, just taking and taking.

Tony cups his jawline and—and the armor is gone. It’s Tony’s warm skin on his face. The whorls of his fingerprints feel rough after the smooth metal from before.

“Are you crying?” Tony’s voice is barely a whisper.

He is. He doesn’t know when he started, but his face is wet.

Tony drops his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“What?” Steve croaks. He looks up, through the drops of water clustering at the tips of his eyelashes, just enough to see Tony’s face. He’s not ready to lift his head all the way, to meet Tony’s eyes.

“I pushed you too far, I, shit, I stopped checking in with you, I hurt you. I fucked up, Steve, what can I do?”

Steve just shakes his head, confused. What’s Tony talking about?

“I can go,” Tony says, leaning away from Steve.

“No,” Steve interrupts. Tony stills at once. He hadn’t meant to be that loud. “It’s your room, Tony,” he adds, feeling sheepish.

“Right, but. Steve, talk to me, what did I do?”

“Not you,” Steve says. “I, I shouldn’t have—I just—and now I made it worse, I ruined everything.”

“Oh. _Oh._ ” Tony sounds relieved. “You’re dropping.”

“What?”

Tony scoots closer, rests a tentative hand on Steve’s shoulder. Despite himself, Steve leans into the touch. “The harder they fall, etcetera. Look. It’s a kink thing, okay? A hormone thing. You’re crashing, that’s all.”

“Crashing?”

“Do you ever feel like this after a battle? Or working out a lot, when you’ve really exhausted yourself?”

Steve has to think about this. He might have, but it didn’t feel like this.

Tony keeps talking. “First thing is, hydrate.” He passes Steve a bottle of water. It must be one of the things he’d gotten up to fetch. “Then tell me what you need. I can go, I can call someone, Sam, or—”

“Stay,” Steve says without exactly meaning to. It’s selfish, again, but he also doesn’t want Tony to leave thinking he’s done something wrong.

“Okay,” Tony says softly. “I’ll stay. Drink your water, okay?”

Steve stares down at the bottle in his hands. He’s tired in the same way he’d earlier been content. He clumsily unscrews the cap and takes a swig.

“There you go. Okay. Can you tell me why you’re upset?”

“You’re still angry at me.”

“Of course I’m not. Steve, look at me.”

Steve shakes his head. “What, because you let me take what I wanted and give nothing back?” he spits.

“I haven’t been angry,” Tony insists. “Not for a while. I’ve been frustrated, sure. You’re a piece of work, you know that?”

Steve tries to scoff. It comes out more of a wet sniff. Well, he’s already past the point of retaining his dignity, anyway.

“It’s a good thing. I like it, anyway.”

“I took advantage of you.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Tony cock his head. “How do you figure that?”

“I wanted to make things better, I wanted to work it all out, but I just _lay_ there and took everything I wanted.”

Tony starts to reach toward him, then drops his hand. “You really wanted this, huh?”

“I didn’t know it would be like this,” Steve says, like that makes it any better.

“Bondage and kink and stuff can be intense,” Tony says, like he’s agreeing with what Steve’s just said. “You won’t always drop like this, though.”

“That’s not what I mean, I…” Steve doesn’t know what to say.

“Have you done a scene like that before?”

Steve turns his head away. “I haven’t done—any of it before.”

Tony gapes at him, then tries to recover himself. “I would have liked to know that,” he says, voice quiet.

God, of course Tony wouldn’t have done this if he’d known Steve had been so inexperienced. He’d told himself it wasn’t any of Tony’s business, that Tony would just be interested in sex, in working out their issues and moving on, but really, part of him knew Tony would have said no if he’d known. Either because taking someone’s virginity isn’t _casual_ , or because he’d realize—like he’s surely realizing now—how much it meant to Steve, to want this, to ask for it, that what Steve really wants isn’t something Tony wants to give. Maybe he’ll leave now, now that he realizes Steve hasn’t stopped lying by omission like this.

“But. Look. It’s okay. It’s just new,” Tony says.

Steve squeezes his eyes shut. Is Tony still trying to comfort him? Even after realizing what Steve’s done?

“I think I know what’s going on,” Tony says, seemingly to himself. “Steve, can I hug you?”

“You don’t have to, I—”

“I know I don’t have to,” Tony says evenly. “I know it doesn’t always seem like it, but I like touching you, okay? So, can I hug you?”

Steve nods. Tony likes touching him? In a way it seems silly to wonder, given everything that they’ve just done. But it’s one thing to be sexually interested in Steve, to want him that way, and another to want to touch him any other time. It doesn’t seem long ago that they only touched each other in violence. And whenever they’ve been near each other these past few days, Tony’s kept his distance, his hands in his pockets, his arms folded over his chest. He’s a little freer in the armor—

Steve can’t think about the armor now. He’s still naked, and—god, he’s still covered in come, Tony must have been washing himself up and returned so Steve could take his turn—and if he gets hard again now Tony will see and be reminded of how selfish Steve is and—

Tony wraps his arms around Steve from behind, his hands settling near Steve’s collarbone. He nestles his face in Steve’s shoulder. He’s not wearing a shirt—Steve thinks he’s just in underwear now—and smells strongly of his soap and cologne. His beard is coarse on Steve’s skin.

Have they hugged before? Steve doesn’t think so. He can’t think of a time they’ve been this close to each other. Maybe in battle, back to back, Steve in his uniform, Tony in his armor—the armor again.

Except there is no armor now. Just Tony, and the silver lightning bolts of metal embedded in his arms. Steve looks down at them, at the way the angles break up the sinews of Tony’s natural shape. He can feel the hard shape of the arc reactor between his shoulder blades.

“See, it’s okay,” Tony says.

Maybe it is. Steve’s starting to believe Tony thinks it is, at least.

“Just talk to me. Help me understand. You wanted this.”

“So much,” Steve admits.

“With the armor?” Tony coaxes.

“I love the armor.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s so beautiful. It’s so—so you.”

Tony’s breath gusts warm in his ear, rustling the hair over his ears. It feels good, having him right there, the weight of him, the press of skin to skin.

“You said that you and the armor are one,” Steve continues.

Tony chuckles. “I also said it was a prosthetic.”

“You and the suit _are_ one.”

“Hm.” Tony seems to consider this. “Not everyone believes me.”

“That first time I saw you use it, the way it covered you—it was like seeing you again for the first time.” Steve searches for the right words. “The way you reinvent it, yourself, it’s amazing.”

“And you thought we could reinvent us?” Tony asks. “You and me? The way we are?”

“Something like that,” Steve mutters. “Seeing you again—I missed you. More than you know.”

“Okay,” Tony says, like he’s agreeing with something. “Let’s do it. Let’s reinvent you and me. Any way you want.”

“It shouldn’t be all up to me, that’s what just went wrong.”

“Interesting.” Steve can feel, against his skin, Tony’s lips curl into a smile. “I thought everything that just happened was all up to me.”

“What do _you_ want, Tony? How would you redesign us?”

Tony swallows. “Just like this. Sex, and holding you, and talking with you.”

“We can do that?”

“Sure, why not?” He sounds flip as ever.

But. He’s not, is he. “Okay,” Steve says.

“Okay?” Tony repeats.

Steve plucks Tony’s wrists off of his chest, sets his arms down, and then turns himself around, so they’re face each other. He leans forward and clutches Tony’s waist. “Yeah. Sex, and holding each other, and talking.”

Tony smiles. It’s brilliant, utterly transforming his face. His eyes are blazing, even as his smile lines crinkle and cover them with his lush eyelashes. He closes the scant inches between their faces, and then they’re kissing.

Steve had been entranced by the slip and slide of their bodies, of the press of Tony’s armor against his flesh, but this is something else again. Maybe it’s because he actually has some experience kissing other people and has an idea of what it’s normally like, or because this is his first kiss with Tony. He feels like he’s weightless. Their mouths shape each other, lips part together, their breaths flow in sync. It’s electric. Steve fists his hand into Tony’s hair. He hadn’t gotten to touch, before. But now he gets to, he gets everything.

This is the other part of Tony, he thinks. There’s the armor, the shell, the edges, and then there’s this—not just the hot rush of spit and teeth and tongue and breathing each other’s air, but the way he gives himself over, audacious and shameless.

Tony pulls away. One hand is on the back of Steve’s neck, the other on his waist. He rests their foreheads together and reveals another stunning grin. “And kissing,” he says. “Sex, holding each other, talking, and kissing.”

“And armor?” Steve asks.

Tony laughs. For a moment, Steve is frozen, heartsick, wondering the last time he heard Tony sound so free and happy. He recovers himself with a reminder that if he can do it once, he can do it again. He’s being given a chance to see Tony like this, and he’ll do his best to earn it.

“And armor,” Tony agrees, still smiling.

“What do you call this version of the armor?”

“Mark 50. Or Bleeding Edge.”

Steve’s passingly familiar with the term, though it’s from well after his time. An idiom spawned from another idiom. Cutting edge, like the sharp part of a knife, but more, so far at the forefront it can draw blood without touching. “I love it.” He blushes, realizing that he’d also said _You and the armor are one_.

“Oh,” Tony says. “Me, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> RACK (risk-aware consensual kink) compliance: it’s open to interpretation how risk-aware Steve is in this, but since he’s a super-soldier the risk itself is arguably minimal; through the power of Steve’s pain tolerance, super stamina, and his determination and thirst for Tony and the armor (AKA the power of fiction and “I said so”) everything is completely consensual -- even though at times Tony doesn’t have a reliable way of knowing this.  
> SSC (safe, sane, consensual) compliance: I mean it’s weaponized armor, which Steve contemplates at times, but Tony is in absolute control of it, Steve has super pain tolerance and healing, and these two regularly throw themselves into life-threatening situations so it’s pretty safe by their standards; sanity is a loaded and problematic term but emotionally speaking, this route to working through shit was probably not the best choice; that said it ends up kinda succeeding; and again, everything is consensual. 
> 
> All that said, I have probably missed some tags and content notes, so do watch out, and definitely don’t take this or any other fic as sex or kink advice. These two suck at communicating, which is how they got here, and while Tony does check in with Steve several times, they don’t do enough discussion of what they’ll be doing, their boundaries, their expectations—or, you know, anything else. 
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Thank you to the brilliant [dasyatidae](http://archiveofourown.org/users/dasyatidae/pseuds/dasyatidae) for beta!
> 
> [Tumblr post](https://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/post/184400443712/edges-dirigibleplumbing-the-avengers-marvel) for the story.
> 
> Find me [on Tumblr](http://dirigibleplumbing.tumblr.com/).
> 
>  
> 
> (Epilogue: Steve and Tony take a shower together (because wow Steve, you’ve been drooling, you have four orgasms of your come on you, plus lube and Tony’s come inside you). Steve probably has another orgasm. They go on to continue talking and working on stuff together and having kinky sex, which they also talk about more. The end.)


End file.
